


we'll show the fire how to burn

by ceserabeau



Series: into the fire [5]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 00:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2894330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceserabeau/pseuds/ceserabeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You haven’t breathed fresh air in ten days. Ten days: since the arena collapsed, since the rebellion began. You wonder how many more until it’s over.</p><p>Johanna in the rebellion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll show the fire how to burn

**Author's Note:**

> Helps to read the rest of the series first. Title from Ben Howard's _The Fire_. Johanna POV.

The arena is on fire. Katniss presses her face up against the window, leaves smear mark on the glass; the look in her eyes is desperate.

Finnick nudges you gently, leans in to put his mouth to your ear: “What do we do if we’re too late?” he asks.

You glare at him, but it feels like there’s a knife in your chest. Somewhere below you in the smoking ruins of the arena is Primrose Everdeen. You don’t know if she’s alive or dead.

Outside the windows is thick black smoke: you know that smoke all too well: it drowned your family, stole their lives. As the jet descends it clouds the windows, and Katniss rears back, surprised.

Haymitch puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “She’s down there,” he says quietly, reassuringly. “We’re going to find her.”

Katniss turns, eyes flicking from Haymitch to the door. Her face is dry but you know the tears are there, lurking, waiting for the shock to wear off. You can’t help wondering what’s going to happen when it does.

The jet shudders, touching down, and she’s straight to the door. It drops down into the grass and Katniss is out in seconds. Everyone else follows slowly, creeping forward into the light.

When you step out you’re blinded for a moment by the heat, the choking smell of smoke, of leaves burning. You feel sick to your stomach. Finnick’s hand slips into yours and you squeeze tight: neither of you thought you’d be back in the arena again.

Outside is a wasteland. Flames flicker everywhere, dancing in the wind. The arena’s structure creaks and sways, collapsing in on itself. At the centre of it all, two tiny bodies curled around each other, holding hands in the ruins of their lives.

-

Prim’s alive.

Prim’s alive and Katniss is holding, cradling her, hands shaking, breath coming in short gasps. “Prim,” she whispers, smoothing over her sister’s hair, “Prim, Prim, _Prim_.”

Prim though, Prim is stock still, almost frozen in the tight circle of Katniss’ arms. She stares at the wall blankly, unseeing: you know this face; you see it on every tribute who ever made it out of the arena.

Finnick’s presence at your back; you reach back for his hand, find it, grip it tight.

“We got them,” he whispers, breath ghosting over your hair. “We did good.”

There are four other tributes safe thanks to this operation: the girls from Nine and Ten; Finnick’s boy, the one you thought might win; your own girl from Seven, shirt stained a bloody red from a gaping wound in her side. She might not make it through the night, but at least she’ll die surrounded by friends.

Looking at them it hits you: these are the last tributes of the last Hunger Games. It should feel good, it should feel _great_ , but there’s a lump in your throat. Nineteen out of twenty-four dead. Those are not the statistics of a victory.

Across the aircraft, Finnick’s boy shifts in his seat, eyes flicking around the room. “How did you do it?” he croaks out. “How did you destroy the arena?”

“Heavensbee made a device,” Haymitch explains, “Something to make it explode. We just had to wait for the right time.”

Prim’s eyelashes flutter. “The right time,” she echoes, and her voice is so raw it hurts to hear.

You think of Vick Hawthorne’s frail body in the centre of the clearing, blood a jagged necklace round his throat.

-

Your girl dies in the night.

The doctor says _I’m sorry_ , and _there was nothing we could do_ , and _if she’d been pulled out an hour earlier_.

In the morgue, Gale Hawthorne is backlit by halogen lights. He stares at the tiny body your girl, lying parallel to his boy, both of them cold on the metal slabs. He wears the same expression you do: anger, sorrow: oh, the difference an hour could have made.

You hide away in your room for as long as you can, the pain consuming you in ways you haven’t felt in years. If you could stay here forever, buried beneath the covers, you would.

But later, the room finally slipping into darkness, and the door opens with a faint click. Backlit against the lights of the hallway is a familiar figure: Katniss, still so beautiful even in those ugly grey fatigues.

“ _Jo_ ,” she whispers, taking shuffling steps forward; “Jo, are you awake?”

You could ignore her. You could roll over, show her your back, push her away; you want to, just a little, because her sister is alive and well where your own tributes are not. But that’d be cruel and there’s already been enough cruelty for a lifetime.

You reach out to her in the darkness and she takes your hand. She climbs gently into bed to wrap herself around you, and you cling to her like a child, let yourself shake in the circle of her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles against your hair. When you tilt your head to look at her, her eyes are sad. “I wish we could’ve saved her.”

“Shut up,” you bite back, and kiss her until you can taste blood.

-

Thirteen is a strange place: cold and clinical. Everyone is quiet, as if words are a luxury they can’t afford, and it makes the corridors eerie, uncomfortable. You’re already sick of the colour grey.

It helps to have the others here, familiar faces: Haymitch and Finnick and Mags, Beetee, Wiress; and of course Katniss, their Girl on Fire, their Mockingjay.

The other Victors have disappeared into the districts: to _stoke the rebellion_ Coin says as she eyes you all, almost disdainfully, as if you should’ve gone too. You could’ve gone to Seven, like Blight, but there’s nothing there any more, just the smoking ruins of building, the charred stumps and scorched earth of the forests. The bombs saw to that.

There’s something about Coin that sets your teeth on edge. All her movements are slow and careful, like a coiled snake ready to strike. She reminds you of the rattlers that lurked in the forests, how you had to cut their heads off if they got into the houses.

You don’t trust her; and from the way Katniss looks at her sideways, you know she doesn’t either.

She comes to you in the afternoon, curls herself up on the bed next to where you’re reading. “I don’t like it here,” she tells you. “I just want to go home.”

You tuck a hand into her hair, fingers cupping the soft curve of her skull. You read the reports, saw Katniss’ face when she came back: there’s nothing left of Twelve either.

She sighs, turns her face into your hand: “I know,” she whispers; “I just don’t like being stuck down here.”

“At least you get to go above ground,” you remind her.

You haven’t breathed fresh air in ten days. Ten days: since the arena collapsed, since the rebellion began. You wonder how many more until it’s over.

“You can come up with me some time,” she says quietly, like she knows what you’re thinking. Her fingers curl over the bones in your wrist; they feel too delicate under her hand.

“Yeah,” you say, just as softly, “Maybe.”

You won’t be going outside. Up above, winter is giving way to spring, new life sprouting from beneath the soil. You’re not ready to see the world recovering when you still haven’t.

-

“I have some bad news,” Coin says, in that carefully cautious way of hers.

You’re in the briefing room, surrounded by the familiar faces of your fellow Victors. Across the room, Haymitch is pouring water into a plastic cup. You wish it was something else, something stronger: you have a sinking feeling that it might be what’s needed to get through this conversation.

“Some of the Victors have been captured,” Coin tells the room. “Some have been executed by the Capitol.”

The room seems to pause, tension running like a current through everyone there. You watch the way Katniss grips the arms of her chair tight; you’re doing the same to yours.

Beetee’s head tilts, curious: “How many?”

Coin’s brow furrows, her fingers fiddling with the papers that sit neatly on the desk in front of her. It’s the first time you’ve ever seen her look nervous. “Fifty dead,” she says.

A silence falls. Mouths drop open. Hands start to shake. Haymitch’s cup falls to the floor and you watch the way the water explodes out of it, splattering the floor with tiny gleaming droplets.

“Who?” a voice asks: maybe you, maybe someone else: in this moment you are all one.

“I have a list,” Coin says. “Would you like me to read it?”

Someone must nod because Coin opens her mouth and starts to speak. The first few names bring sighs around the room; the next bring hiccups; the rest bring sobs. They are endless, Coin’s voice relentless; you can’t tell if she’s going by district or by name or by year, all of them running together in your head. So many dead; nineteen tributes pale in comparison.

Coin finally pauses, her eyes flicking around the room. In the corner, Haymitch pukes. Mags’ hands are twisted, white-knuckled, in her hair. Wiress is on her knees, body rocking back at forth.

“One more,” she whispers, more to herself than the rest of you, and she turns her head to look past you to Finnick leaning against the wall: “Annie Cresta.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the stomach, the air exploding out of your lungs and you’re gasping for breath. Behind you Finnick drops to his knees, a scream ripping from his mouth as his hands claw bloody marks into his face. It sounds like his heart is tearing its way out of his chest.

As always with the Capitol, even when you win you lose.

-

A rumour runs through Thirteen: _survivors_ , people whisper behind their hands, _Victors_.

You make it down to the clinic the same time as Haymitch, bursting through the doors hot on his heels. Inside is pandemonium, people rushing to and fro, and on the beds two bodies twisting, fighting to escape.

Your heart clenches horribly: for a second you half expected to see fiery red hair, eyes like sea-glass, but Annie’s ghost is nowhere to be seen.

A voice cries out from the bed, a desperate roar. You know who it is, whose names weren’t on the list, but the people in front of you are not the ones you knew.

You expected to see Cashmere, Cashmere with her long silky hair, her straight white teeth, her bright green eyes, her lilting laugh. What you get instead is: hair gone, all gone, replaced with sharp stubble and scabs across her scalp; bruises around her eyes so dark they look black. When she snarls at the doctors, thrashing in their grip, you can see the gaps in her mouth, the holes where the teeth have been yanked out.

A break in the rush and Cashmere’s eyes flit over you for a second. She pauses in her struggle, staring at you, almost surprised. Then a doctor gets a needle into her and she collapses, a puppet with all her strings finally cut.

In the next bed a head swivels in her direction, body twitching towards the silence. Gaunt, pale, skin stretched tight over bones, eyes sunk deep into a skull. Beneath the cuts and bruises you can just about make out a familiar face.

A whimper escapes your mouth: “Gloss,” you whisper, stepping forward.

His head comes up from the bed, searching, and when he finds you his gaze is haunted, terrified. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out, just a garbled sound, and you see in his mouth: nothing, oh god, his tongue has been cut out, he’s been made into an Avox. Your whole body starts to shake.

Haymitch’s hand finds yours, squeezes tight. “Thank god,” he says; “Thank god, they’re safe,” but his voice trembles, halfway to cracking.

You know what he’s thinking. There’s suffering and then there’s the Games and then there’s this: torture, cruelty, the Capitol digging their claws in and ripping them out: times like these it’s to be dead.

-

Snow’s face on the screen, dark eyes and lips smeared a dark red. He seems older, lines and wrinkles set deeper in his face. You wonder if the rebellion is taking its toll on him too; you wonder who he’s poisoned to keep himself at the top when so many are calling for his blood.

“Today,” he intones, in that ice-cold voice of his, “I speak directly to the criminals in District Thirteen who are upsetting the order of our great nation. To Katniss Everdeen and the other Victors who attempt to overthrow seventy-five years worth of hard work.”

His mouth twitches: a snarl, or what passes for one in the Capitol. You see the anger there, the fear lurking beneath it; he knows how close you are to toppling him.

“War costs lives,” he says through the screen, “Many, many lives. The lives of innocents, your friends and family, thousands of your people.”

You think of a family burnt up in an old house, a thousand children in pieces on a television screen, fifty dead Victors without bodies to bury, districts consumed in fire leaving nothing but ash in the air. You know, have always known what war costs.

“Before you act you must consider the consequences. You must consider what you are willing to give for victory.” Snow blinks long lashes, and now his mouth curls into something smug and knowing. “While you think on these things, I ask you to step outside for a minute to see your surroundings. I have sent you a gift. I hope that on seeing it you will reconsider your position, your rebellion.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest, fear starting to consume you: what horror has he brought for you this time.

“Panem today,” Snow says. “Panem tomorrow. Panem forever,” and the screen goes dark.

Somewhere alarms are sounding, commanders yelling about aircrafts overhead, bombs dropping. People are scrabbling about, fleeing down into the depths of Thirteen, but you’ve never been one for following orders. Instead you find Katniss’ hand and lead her up up _up_ until you can break out into the late evening air.

Up here the sun has nearly gone, the world painted a greys and blacks. You stumble a little in the dark, but Katniss holds you tight. Others begin to surface: the Victors, the camera crew, Coin and her generals.

The dusk turns everything into faint shapes: the harsh lines of trees and their waving branches in the wind, the slopes of hills and craters, unfamiliar lumps and bumps. It’s only as your eyes adjust that it all becomes clear. You see what Snow has sent for you.

Bodies, bodies upon bodies upon bodies, piled high in great stacks, strewn across the ground, some burnt to a crisp, others will blood still drying on their skin. Twisted limbs, hands reaching out, eyes staring blankly at you. Littered over them: the familiar shape of flowers: roses, almost luminous, a stark white against the shadows of the night.

You reach down to touch one and pull back with blood smeared across your fingertips from the hidden thorns. You track tacky lines across the folds of your uniform; it’s almost invisible in the dark.

Footsteps crunch over the ground: “ _Fuck_ ,” Haymitch whispers; “What the fuck is this.”

“It’s a message,” Katniss says, and when you look at her, her face is tilted up to the black sky. There are tears twinkling against her skin. “A reminder.”

Snow will burn all of Panem to the ground if it means that he comes out on top.

-

Another day, another meeting, the Victors trailing into the briefing silently. _We are all that’s left_ , a voice in your head whispers, and you’re hit by another wave of sadness. They’re all dead, everyone who stood united and extended their hands for you to join them, every single one of them gone.

You watch them around the table: they’re tense, faces nervous, anxious: you feel it echoed in yourself. Meetings like this can only mean bad news.

“There has been a suggestion,” Coin says slowly, “if we win the war.”

She glances around, expectant, waiting for someone to ask, but around the table are uninterested stares. You wonder if maybe they’re starting to get sick of her too.

Coin takes a breath, continues: “The districts are already calling for the Capitol to be exterminated. However in the interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this. Therefore an alternative solution has been presented, to help channel their anger. It has been decided that the remaining Victors should approve the plan. You all must vote; no one can abstain.”

You glance at Katniss: she looks as nervous as you feel. “Well what is it?” she says finally.

“A final Hunger Games,” Coin says, “With the children of the Capitol.”

A silence falls. Everyone glances around at each other, unsure. Across the table, Finnick’s hands are shaking in his lap; Katniss’ eyes are hard.

It’s Haymitch that speaks up first: “Well if we’re voting, I say yes. Let them have a taste of their own medicine.”

Katniss jerks a little, taken aback. You wish you could be surprised too, but this is Haymitch: you and he have always been alike in this way, fuelled by hatred for the Capitol, for Snow, the anger burning deep in your gut the only thing keeping you going.

“I’m with Haymitch,” you say, and your voice seems to echo around the room. Even to your own ears it sounds cold.

Katniss turns to you. Her face is horrified, terrified, like she’s seeing you for the first time. You’ve never seen her look at you like that before, and your certainty wavers. She holds your gaze for a long moment, eyes boring into yours, as if she’s searching for something; whatever she finds there makes her turn away, fix her eyes on the table. You take a deep, steadying breath.

Next to you Cashmere is nodding her head. “Us too,” she says, hand reaching out for Gloss’ on the table. “We want them to happen.”

You look to Gloss. In your memories he was always kind, gentle in counterpoint to the wall of his muscles. But here, now, with a stump where his tongue should be and bruises still in dark rings around his eyes, all that kindness has been stripped away: he nods in agreement.

Coin nods, satisfied. She looks happier than you’ve ever seen her. “Are the rest of you?” she asks.

Mags taps the table, and when everyone turns to look at her she’s shaking her head: a resounding no.

Beetee nods along with her. “It sets a bad precedent. We have to stop viewing one another as enemies. At this point, unity is essential for our survival. No.”

He reaches over to tap Wiress’ arm and she glances up meekly. “No,” she mumbles, but when Beetee nudges her she repeats it, louder: “No, I don’t want another Games.”

Coin nods calmly, turns to the next seat: “And you, Mister Odair?”

“No,” Finnick whispers. His head snaps up, eyes boring straight into Coin for one long moment. “Annie would’ve said no too.”

Coin’s head twitches a little: a nervous tick. “Annie Cresta is dead,” she says callously. “She doesn’t get a vote.”

Finnick’s head drops again, and under your hands the leather of the chair creaks ominously. Haymitch shoots you a warning glance. Coin is oblivious.

“It looks like it’s up to you, Katniss,” she says, her mouth stretched in a smile that’s a little too smug. She looks like she already knows which way Katniss is going to go.

Every head in the room turns in Katniss’ direction, pinning her under the weight of a dozen gazes. You can see the hopeful look in Gloss’ eyes, the almost frantic one in Finnick’s. Deep down you realise you’re scared of what she’s going to say.

Katniss’ eyes flicker over you once, and then her chin comes up, proud and strong. “I vote no,” she says.

Coin’s mouth drops open. Oh, you see now – she thought she had Katniss’ loyalty; she thought Katniss was going to say yes. Even though you can feel anger coursing through you at Katniss’ answer, you’ve never been as proud of her as right now: standing up to the woman who controls you, who controls your fate, is not an easy task.

“I see,” Coin says slowly. “Very well. The Games will not happen.”

Katniss’ chair squeaks over the floor as she shoves it backwards: “ _Good_ ,” and she makes for the exit.

You’re after her in a second, grabbing at her sleeve. Behind you conversation is starting again, drowning you out when you say, “Wait,” and, “Stop.”

“Let go,” she says, brows drawn down into a frown.

You stare at her, surprised: “Are you mad because I voted yes?” Katniss jerks a little in your grip and you can’t help the frustration that washes over you. “Why? It’s not going to happen anyway,” you tell her. “It doesn’t matter how I voted.”

Katniss recoils sharply, as if you’ve hit her. “I don’t understand how you could,” she says, tone low and heated. “Another Hunger Games – what do you think we’ve been fighting against? If we agree to that things will never change.”

You feel like you should apologise, but the words won’t come, stuck in your throat. How can you apologise for your anger, for your hatred, for your burning need to watch the Capitol suffer? You say nothing.

Katniss shakes her head once, frustrated, then pulls out of your hold. “I thought so,” she says, almost to herself, and she turns away. You watch her disappear down the corridor, head ducked low. She doesn’t look back one.

Heavensbee grabs your arm as your leaving: “Miss Mason,” he says, in that careful lisping way of his, “Haymitch says that you know a lot about the Capitol. I would like to pick your brains, if you have a moment.”

You think of Katniss flinching away from you: “Not right now,” you say, almost cold.

“Of course not,” he says, with a tight little smile. “But I wonder – how do you feel about our conversation being filmed?”

You blink at him: “You mean for a propo?”

He laughs, leans in conspiratorially. “Oh yes, my dear,” he says, “One for the whole world to see.”

-

Finnick tries to hang himself on a Friday. They took away his rope but he tore up the bed sheets and strung himself up. You go to see him in the hospital, where he’s cuffed to the bed, looking more fragile than you’ve ever seen.

The doctors use words like _depression_ and _suicidal_ ; they tell you to be kind, to be gentle with him. You try but there’s anger swelling in your gut, washing over you like a wave.

“How could you do that?” you hiss at him, hands clenched by your sides are you sit by his bed. “How could you just give up?”

It’s a stupid question; you know how. He and Annie were two halves of the same whole, sharing a heart, a soul: now there is a gaping hole where she used to be. The anger ebbs, fades to nothing.

“She wouldn’t have wanted this,” you whisper, reaching out to knot your fingers with his. “She would have wanted you to live, Finnick, to live for her.”

A noise escapes his mouth: a whisper, a whimper. “Nothing worth living for,” he sighs.

And just like that the anger is back, rushing through you: “You _asshole_. What about Mags? What about _me_?”

His blinks at you, surprised. These are the things you don’t talk about: how much he means to you, how much it hurts to see him like this. But there are people you couldn’t live without and Finnick’s name is at the top of the list.

“ _Jo_ ,” he murmurs, voice cracking over the word. “I – I didn’t – I wasn’t –”

You have to look away from his eyes, the tears there; it makes you feel like you’re out at sea, about to drown. “Listen,” you say, fighting to keep your voice even, “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I need your help.”

It catches his attention. “My help with what?”

“Coin wants to do a propo,” you tell him, “To tell the world about Snow, about what he did to me, to us.”

Finnick just shakes his head, turns away to stare at the wall. “I can’t – I’m not going on camera.”

You rub the soft skin of his wrist, comforting. “You don’t have to; that part’s going to be all me.  But I need you to tell me everything, every secret they ever told you. I need them all.”

His head snaps around at that, and you can see something twinkling in his eyes, the old Finnick winking at you from behind the mask of pain. His lips twist, sharp and smug: “I can help you with that,” he says.

-

Early in the morning, under layers of concrete: you’re moving through the empty corridors of Thirteen, the only sound the low echo of your boots on the floor.

You like the mornings here. When people are awake it’s too busy, too crowded; it reminds you too much of the Capitol, of the thousands of people who used to swarm around you on the street, hands reaching out, desperate to touch. But at this time it’s calm, peaceful: the stillness, the silence reminds you of Seven. 

So it’s a surprise when you turn a corner and run into the last person you ever expected to see: Katniss, leaning against the wall, like she’s been waiting for you.

The _what are you doing here?_ spills from your mouth before you even realise you’ve opened it.

Katniss’ mouth is a grim line. “Haymitch told me what you’re doing – the filming, I mean.” Her brow furrows: “You know you don’t have to do it,” she says, like you don’t already know. “Please, Jo, don’t do it if you don’t want to.”

Oh, you don’t want to. Showing off your scars, revealing your secrets: you’ve never wanted to do anything less. The very idea makes you want to puke.

“There’s no one else to do it,” you say, and if your voice wavers a little neither of you mention it. “They need a distraction for Beetee to get into the defence system.”

Katniss sighs, heavy and hollow. “I know,” she says. Her fingers on your arm are gentle, stroking over your sleeve. “I just hate it. They’re already taken so much from you already. Why can’t they leave it alone?”

You stare, momentarily blinded by her, by her love. In your chest your heart is swelling, threatening to burst. Slowly, cautiously, you put a hand on her cheek, lean in, give her time to pull away. She doesn’t and you get to kiss her, soft and sweet. It feels like the first time all over again.

“Jo,” she whispers against your lips when you part; “Be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Your chest hurts. “Don’t worry about it,” you tell her, finally pulling away. “I’ll be fine.”

When you leave you throw her a smile, but for some reason it feels wrong in your mouth, fake and painful. You think of the ache in your chest: the way you feel about her colliding with what you know about the Capitol: it will always hurt you, no matter how far you flee.

-

My name, you say, is Johanna Mason. I won the 71st Hunger Games. I survived the Victor’s Purge. I am part of the rebellion. I’m here to tell you all how the Capitol really works.

In the Capitol a Victor is a valuable commodity. If they are desirable, President Snow gives them as a reward to his supporters or allows people to buy them for exorbitant amounts of money. If you refuse, he kills someone you love. If you keep refusing, he kills everyone you love.

I refused and he killed my family. He burnt their house to the ground with them inside. My mother, my father, my three sisters. One of them had never taken any tessera. One of them wasn’t even old enough to walk.

I thought their deaths meant I was free, but President Snow just found more people I loved. My friends, other Victors, people who became like family to me. He threatened them with death. So I stopped refusing. For four years I have been President Snow’s whore.

But I’m not the only one. Many of you in the Capitol watching this have spent time with Finnick Odair. Why is he important you ask? Well, instead of money and jewels you gave him secrets. Secrets I’m going to share with you now.

Are you scared yet? You should be.

“Cut,” a voice says.

You open your eyes, let out the breath you’ve been holding. You whole body is a live wire, every part of you shaking uncontrollably. You want to laugh; you want to cry.

Maybe this is what real freedom feels like.

-

A knock on the door late at night: you expect Katniss, but when you open it it’s Prim, yellow hair braided like a halo around her head.

“Can I come in?” she asks, and doesn’t wait for your response.

You let her pass, let her peer at your books and salvaged photographs, let her lean against the table and pin you with her big blue eyes. She doesn’t look like Katniss, but that’s all you see.

“They’re putting a squad together,” she tells you, “To go to the Capitol. They’re going to kill Snow.”

You frown at her, confused. “They didn’t ask me.”

Her lips curl a little. “I know. That’s why I’m telling you.” She pauses, eyes narrowing like she’s waiting for a reaction: “Katniss is on it.”

Your breath whistles out between your teeth. Stupid, stupid girl; she’s trying to protect you obviously, but this kind of thing is what gets people killed. To have Katniss out there, with only a bunch of thugs from Thirteen to protect her – it sounds like a death trap. That’s probably what Coin is counting on, conniving bitch that she is.

Prim can see it play out across your face; she nods, hands tight around the edge of the table. “She’s going to need you,” she says. “I don’t trust them to protect her.”

The _I don’t trust Coin_ goes unsaid.

You look at her, this slip of a girl. She is different now: where before she was frail and fragile, a wilting flower, now there is steel in her spine. The Games have remade her, as they do all their survivors.

“Coin won’t let me join,” you remind her. “If she wanted me there she would’ve asked me already.”

“You can convince her,” Prim says. “I know you. You’ve never let anything stop you.”

It makes you smile: that’s the truth right there. You’ll convince her, or you’ll find a way onto the aircraft; you’ll find a way to be at Katniss’ side.

Prim nods, satisfied. She moves to the door, but then she pauses, turning to look at you: her gaze is clear and strong, and again you’re reminded of Katniss. “If this goes wrong,” she says, “You could die.”

You shrug. “Nothing new there,” you tell her and her mouth finally curves into a smile.

“I always knew I liked you,” she says.

The door clicks shut behind her.

-

“I want in,” you say.

The commanders are spread out around the map, pushing toy soldiers into position: through Eight, through Five, troops coming up from Four, creeping through One. They barely spare you a glance as you stand in the doorway.

“I’m afraid there isn’t space on the team,” Coin says, and she pats your arm gently, condescendingly.

On the other side of the table, Katniss leans into the light. “Of course there’s space,” she insists. “What’s one more person?”

Coin’s mouth is a thin line. “I’m sorry,” she says coolly, “But Miss Mason here is not a soldier.”

You can feel your lips curling in a snarl, but you remember quickly: this is a place where rules have to be followed, etiquette has to be followed: there’s no room for your anger here.

“With all due respect,” you say, even though you have never sounded more disrespectful, “I’m more of a soldier than any one of your men. How many of them have seen combat? How many of them have ever killed? Katniss needs protecting and there’s no one better than me to do it.”

Coin’s head twitches, frustrated, but behind her the commanders are nodding in agreement. They can see how valuable it is to have someone who knows how to fight a war, who won’t shy away from danger.

One of them taps Coin’s shoulder, leans in to whisper in her ear. “Fine,” she says after a moment, tone sour. She turns back to the table, her fingers brushing over the pieces on the map. “You can join the team. Just don’t get in the way.”

You nod agreeably, happily. Across the room you catch Katniss’ smile; you see your satisfaction reflected in her eyes.

Fitting isn’t it: Snow burnt your family to ash, now you get to raze his kingdom to the ground.

-

Finnick is in the hangar, waiting, dwarfed by the hulking aircraft. His hair is getting long; he looks younger than you’ve ever seen him.

“Be careful,” he says as he hugs you, mouth against the shell of your ear. “Promise me, Jo.”

“I promise.” You let him hold your face in his hands, let him lean your foreheads together like you used to on the worst nights. “We’re going to be fine out there. The team’s good, maybe the best they’re got here.”

He shakes his head minutely, eyes scared. “I don’t trust Coin,” he whispers.

You nod. “Neither do I.” You pull back to fix him with your sternest gaze. “Don’t worry, Finnick, I’m going to watch her back.”

“And who’s going to watch yours?”

His face twists like he’s fighting with himself. You know him, know what it is: he wishes he could come with you, but his own stupidity, his own selfishness will keep him here where he is helpless, unable to do anything.

You touch his face gently, reassuring. “I can take care of myself,” you tell him quietly. “You know me.”

“Yeah,” Finnick says glumly, “I know you.” His mouth is a sad curve. “Don’t do anything stupid, Jo, _please_.”

It startles a laugh from you. You’ve always been on the verge of doing something stupid, especially where Katniss Everdeen is involved.

You press a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll be back before you know it, okay? The Capitol hasn’t killed me yet and they’re not going to this time.”

Finnick smiles at you, all teeth. “I believe you,” he says, but you know what he looks like when he’s lying: he doesn’t think you’re coming back at all.

-

The mission goes to shit pretty fast. Not that you’d expected anything different: these soldiers have never been in real warfare. They don’t know how to read a battle field, how to react with anything but fear; they don’t know how to pull the trigger.

You’ve lost four of the team in less than an hour them. A fool’s errand, your mother would’ve called this, just designed to get you all killed.

“ _Jo_.”

Katniss is pulling you away from the windows; seconds later they shatter inwards, glass spraying across the floor, smoke billowing through the empty frames. You take a deep breath: if you’d still been standing there you’d be dead.

“Which way?” Gale asks. There’s a fine tremor in his voice but his hands are steady on the gun strapped to his chest.

“Most of the fighting is near the Palace,” one of the soldiers says. You think his name might be Boggs; stupid name, but he holds himself like Chaff used to, all strength and pride, and it makes you trust him a little more. “They’re bombing the routes they know the rebels are taking.”

“Then we go there,” Katniss says decisively.

You like her like this: backlit by explosions, hair blowing in the wind, hands tight and sure on her gun. She looks like a warrior, the Girl on Fire brought from the propos into reality. You’ve never loved her more.

Boggs frowns. “Our orders are to move to the bunkers in the mountains. Snow will be heading there now that the fighting’s getting close.”

Katniss shakes her head: “He’ll be at the Palace.”  The look on her face is knowing, calm. “He won’t flee; it’s not in his nature.”

Boggs glances at Gale who shrugs; his eyes flick to you but you’re nodding along with Katniss. Snow might be a snake, but he won’t run. He knows it’s almost over; he knows you’re coming from him.

“You can follow Coin’s orders if you want,” you tell him, “But Katniss and me are going to the Palace.”

The soldiers glance between each other, expressions uneasy. It’s Gale who steps forward, says, “I’m coming with you.”

Boggs looks mutinous, but slowly, finally, he nods. “Fine,” he says. “I’m probably going to get court-martialled for this, you know.”

Katniss snorts, reaches out to pat him on the arm. “Don’t worry,” she tells him sweetly, “You can just blame it on me. Coin certainly will.”

-

The Presidential Palace looks the same as it always has: ostentatious, opulent, filled with paintings and statues, the sweet-sour scent of roses lingering in every hallway.

It’s suspiciously quiet, no guards or pods to be seen. A hush sits like a blanket over everything and you wonder for a brief moment if Snow is even here, if maybe he’s already run for the hills, hidden himself way to live to fight another day.

“He’s here,” Gale says, hands curled protectively around his gun. His fingers are pale against the dark metal. “We’re going to find him. Then I’m going to kill him.”

You smile at him; he flinches and you know it looks vicious, dangerous. “Not if I get to him first.”

Gale laughs, dismissive, but over his shoulder Katniss nods at you. He might have a claim on Snow but the loss of one sibling is nothing compared to how much he’s taken from you: if anyone’s going to put an end to him, it will be you.

You trail Katniss through the halls. You’ve walked these corridors many times before; they used to feel like a march towards an executioner but here, with Katniss in front of you and a gun in your hand, the Palace holds no sway over you.

She glances back at you, as if she knows what you’re thinking. “Where’s the office?” she asks, voice whisper-soft in the silence.

You show her the way. Left, right, down one corridor then another, to an ornate pair of doors. Katniss and the team push through but something about the doors stop you: the great wooden carvings, the huge brass handles. This was where Snow told you your duty to the Capitol, told you your family was dead, told you your rebellion was going to fail.

“Jo,” a voice calls, and you follow it: through the reception, into the office that has haunted your dreams for so many years.

Inside you stop short. Behind the desk is Snow, all cold eyes and snarling lips, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder; and behind him Katniss, blood splattered across her face, hand knotted tight in his hair. She tilts his head back so the long column of his neck is exposed, pale and vulnerable.

“Would you like to do the honours?” she asks and grins, feral but so blindingly beautiful.

In another time you would have said _no_ , you would’ve said _I don’t want any more blood on my hands_. But that was before your tiny tribute bled out alone in a hospital bed, before your best friend tried to take his own life, before your district was reduced to smoke and rubble.

You raise your axe and deliver the killing blow.


End file.
